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Panizzi, the first librarian of the British Library, was an Italian with a law degree from the University of Parma, who had fled revolutionary Italy for Switzerland, eventually settling in England and becoming a naturalized British subject in 1832. Energetic, confident, outspoken, and sociable, in 1828 he became Professor of Italian at University College London (then known as London University), before beginning his highly successful career at the Library of the British Museum, for which he became Principal Librarian, 1856-66. He was knighted in 1869. It was from his preliminary sketch that the original Round Reading-Room developed; another of his achievements was in the enforcement of the Copyright Act of 1842.

Panizzi remained interested in his native country, and, when the Italian nationalist Giovanni Mazzini was exiled in London, spoke out against the interception of his correspondence. As P. R. Harris writes, "It is remarkable that a person [Panizzi] who arrived in this country as a penniless refugee, and who always spoke English with a strong accent, became such an accepted figure in high political and social circles." It is also highly appropriate that this bust should be the work of another gifted Italian-born exile. However, there are always some detractors. The palaeographer Sir Frederic Madden, who retired as keeper of manuscripts at the museum in the same year as Panizzi did (1866), resented seeing the bust in its previous more prominent position — in a niche over the original entrance to the Round Reading-Room: "It is disgraceful to see such fulsome homage to a Foreigner," he protested (qtd. in "Portrait Bust"). Fortunately, this was a minority view. The British Library still hosts an annual series of Panizzi Lectures, named in their "Foreigner's" memory.

The curator's perceptive comment on the bust is as follows: "This naturalistic portrait, with its emphasis on the sitter's shirt, tie, waistcoat and jacket, presents the subject encased in respectability, only the thick curls and bushy whiskers suggesting his earlier romantic past" ("Portrait Bust").